mea culpa, what was I doing trappedin a storm drain in the first place

somebody said I must be patient nowpatient as patio furniture

it was out of my handsthere were eggs stuck in my iron mouth

my head swayed, an airy addendumthe soft shells pulsed like shrapnel

they were lodged in my coal holesomebody said say you are only a house

I am only a house, good, now breathe

Karyna McGlynn was born and raised in Austin, TX and received her MFA from the University of Michigan. Her first book, I Have to Go Back to 1994 and Kill a Girl, won the 2008 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry from Sarabande Books. She’s the author of three chapbooks: Scorpionica, Alabama Steve, and, forthcoming, Small Shrines. Her poems have recently appeared in Fence, Denver Quarterly, Diode, Octopus, Typo, Caketrain and Anti-. Karyna teaches at Concordia University and will be the Claridge Writer-in-Residence at Illinois College this fall. She edits L4: The Journal of the New American Epigram with Adam Theriault.